Posted by
t.m. vecchio on Monday, December 29, 2008 2:53:52 AM
"The Word" is the name of a particular Beatles' song, as everyone should know (by now). It actually appeared on both the British Parlaphone release and American Capitol release of one of their best albums, Rubber Soul. "Say the Word, and you'll be free/Say the Word, and be like me." Indeed, the word, at least in this case, is the word I'm thinking of ... it's the word Love. Yes, we all know the Beatles were about four guys who loved each other and they sang about love (among other things) in and through most of their songs.
Now I happen to believe that the Word is divine. Even Freud noted, "Do not let us despise the word" (and he was hardly a believer in the divine). At the near beginning of Western philosophy, Aristotle ("the Philosopher," according to Aquinas) defined man as zoon logon ekhon--"a living being capable of speech"--all too easily and perhaps wrongly translated as "rational animal."
But how should we go about interpreting the word (and all this speech)? According to Freud, "Analytic institutions would include branches of knowledge which are remote from medicine and which the doctor does not come across in practice: the history of civilization, the psychology of religion, mythology and the science of literature. Unless he is well at home in these subjects, an analyst can make nothing of a large amount of his material. By way of compensation, the great mass of what is taught in medical schools is of no use to him for his purposes." Freud goes on to say that medical training is the "opposite of what the analyst needs as a preparation for psycho-analysis" and further it can even give them "a false and detrimental attitude" since a medical education (like psychiatry) will tend to dismiss too much as "unscientific."
Recently, Christmas was celebrated by a great number of Christians throughout the world. Although merely saying the Word will not make you free, it is a good start. To that end, I offer my take on the Word and the power, glory and eternity of the Word:
In principio erat Verbum, et Verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat Verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum. Omnia per ipsum factum est nihil, quod factum est. In ipso vita erat, et vita erat lux hominum. Et lux in tenebris lucet, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt. Fuit homo missus a Deo, cui nomen erat Joannes. Hic venit in testimonium ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine, ut omnes crederent per illum. Non erat ille lux, sed ut testimonium perhiberet de lumine. Erat lux vera, quae illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum. In mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non cognovit. In propria venit, et sui eum non receperunt. Quotquot autem receperunt eum, dedit eis potestatem filios Dei fieri, his qui credunt in nomine ejus. Qui non ex sanguinibus, neque ex voluntate carnis, neque ex voluntate viri, sed ex Deo nati sunt. Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre plenum gratiae et veritatis.